November 16, 2023
This group of assignments dealt with perspective and environments.
Perspective Studies
We started by studying and sketching 1-point perspective and then moved on to 2-point perspective (below). This wasn’t entirely new to me, as I’ve worked with perspective in previous art classes, but I’d never done projects based on learning perspective, so it was a little more in-depth than I’ve gone previously. We played with finding orthogonal lines, vanishing points, and horizon lines as well.
Larger Format Perspective Drawings (line & tone)
Afterward, we went to the New York Public Library to study a larger setting and make a 2-point perspective drawing. We took some more detailed shots of the NYPL, so after our larger drawing was done, we could make a detailed value drawing of an element at the library. I chose one of the two lions outside of the library to sketch out and shade, while still incorporating perspective. This was fun but definitely challenging, as I had to consider my surroundings when we were drawing live in the library, and working on such a big piece of paper. I enjoyed the toned lion drawing a lot more because I have more experience with shading and adding value to my drawings, but the perspective line study was a good experience.
Photoshop Montages
The final installment of perspective projects was the montages in Adobe Photoshop. We started with a greyscale version. I chose a picture I took at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that incorporated 2-point perspective. It was a very detailed picture, but I was excited to mimic it because of how much I liked the picture. We imported it into Photoshop, desaturating and brightening the image, and started to draw over it. We used the polygonal lasso and the pen tool to create shapes and we filled the shapes with greyscale values in Photoshop’s preset greyscale swatch. I ended up with almost 700 layers, as we needed to make each shape in a different layer to ensure that our color process would go smoothly. Below is the original photo, a work-in-progress (WIP) image, and the final piece.
This process was very tedious but it helped me become a lot more familiar with Photoshop and its capabilities. I enjoyed making the greyscale version because it was satisfying to see the outcome of such a detailed piece. I did have to avoid a lot of details just because of the time constraints, but overall it looks pretty good to me.
The final step was to make a colored version of the piece using different color swatches. I chose the orange and blue color swatch from the Munsell Swatch Palettes because it’s very similar to the original photo’s color scheme. I recolored the shapes by using the blue palette as my shadows and the orange palette as my lights. Below is a WIP and the final version.
Overall, the entire module of perspective and space was really immersive and I enjoyed the multiple facets of the concept. From going to the NYPL and sketching live to using Photoshop, we were able to use and learn a wide variety of skills to help us better understand both perspective and color theory. I also feel a lot more comfortable with Adobe Photoshop now, and I’m glad we got the chance to use it again.